Kirin Chinese Restaurant – Where’s the Meat?!

I had just finished working out after a long day at the office, so I was feeling especially tired and hungry (i.e. grumpy). But B had a mad craving for Chinese food and wanted this stuffed chicken that he had at Kirin several years ago, so we drove all the way over to the San Francisco’s Outer Richmond for dinner.

We ordered a large bowl of winter melon soup and the stuffed chicken with sweet rice. A whole chicken should be enough for us, right? WRONG.

The soup wasn’t particularly good – it didn’t taste fresh, almost as if it had been made a week ago. The broth was a bit too salty and didn’t have the lovely winter melon flavor incorporated into it. We then had to wait what seemed like half an hour for the chicken to come out…

The dish is basically the skin of a whole chicken that has been fried and stuffed with sticky rice…that’s it. Initially, we enjoyed the combination of the crispy fried chicken skin with the warm sticky rice (not sweet rice as it's named). Then after about two pieces, we started to wonder about the chicken meat. There wasn’t any chicken in the rice - were they going to bring the meat out separately (like they do with Peking duck)? Nope. You never get the chicken meat! How can they charge $30 for a chicken and not give you any of the meat?! It’s absurd. I needed protein…just skin and rice did not to cut it for me. They also skimped on the amount of Chinese sausage in the sticky rice - just a few tiny bits instead of whole slices. No meat, bland, and greasy...never again. Such an unsatisfying meal.

[Note: I probably wouldn’t have been as disgruntled about the stuffed chicken had it been one of several dishes instead of my main course, but I still think it’s a crime to charge $30 for under-seasoned chicken skin and rice.]

BITE METER: Kirin Chinese Restaurant – 1.5 bites (out of 5)